


One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

by thesimplyuninspired



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst, Biphobia, Bisexual Dean Winchester, F/M, Fireworks, How Do I Tag, Sam is a jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 20:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesimplyuninspired/pseuds/thesimplyuninspired
Summary: For one moment, Dean considers having something more with Lisa.





	One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Fandom Writing Challenge - June 2017. Prompt: fireworks.
> 
> This is actually maybe a two parter. There's more to the story but it just isn't gonna fit within the challenge's parameters, I don't think.

One month after being dumped, Dean Winchester did not kiss Lisa Braeden.

The party had been grand in concept, a Last Hurrah in a whole month-long line of Last Hurrahs. At least, that’s how Ash had sold it, pelting Dean with assurances that it would be a great time for him to come out and join his much neglected friends. Which they both knew was a lie- Dean hadn’t been much fun the past month but he hadn’t pulled away. But apparently he’d been off just enough and Ash had promised that they could hang out the whole time, Dean wouldn’t have to talk to anyone he wouldn’t know. This had been another lie: The party had been surprisingly low-key, but not in any particularly good way, with a bad choice of music denying party-goers a good dancing atmosphere which had them flocking into small groups and odd corners to find other ways to avoid introspection.

Ash had disappeared ten minutes after arriving, and now Dean was sitting in a too-soft armchair while a pair of seniors made out on the far end of the couch beside him. He looked down at his untouched beer and sighed. Somehow, he had the feeling that he’d had this exact dream a few nights ago. So much for a fun, distracting night. He supposed that’s what he got for going to a pre-pre-graduation party as someone who’d dropped out of high school three months into senior year.

“Well, there’s a sight you don’t see every day.”

Dean looked up, watching as Lisa stepped primly in front of him and perched on the coffee table, smiling playfully. “The life of the party relegated to the sidelines of bad kissing? That’s a sign of the apocalypse.”

“Is that what’s happening?” Dean asked, smiling in spite of himself. “I thought it was just the music.”

Lisa kicked his shin lightly. Dean shot her an exaggerated pout.

“So how does Dean Winchester end up sitting alone to sad music in a crowded room?”

“His invite drags him out with promises of a good time and then vanishes into thin air.”

Lisa lifted her eyebrows knowingly. “Ash?”

“Got it in one.”

“It’s not that hard,” she replied, looking around. “I think I saw him head upstairs with the Dugan twins a little while ago. That might explain it.”

Dean sighed and hanged his head, shaking it. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“Don’t hold it against him.” When Dean looked back up, her smile was a little rueful. “He’s been acting like that the past few weeks. I think graduation’s managed to unsettle him a little.”

That was- slightly worrying. It hardly ever seemed like anything got under Ash’s skin. Dean frowned a little to himself in contemplation. Maybe he should have been paying better attention…

“Hey.” He felt a firm, playful poke between his eyebrows, and blinked up at Lisa in surprise. “Don’t do that. You’ve got enough problems on your plate recently, you don’t need to go and add his to it.”

Dean opened his mouth indignantly to protest, but his mind blanked out. When Lisa leveled him with an unimpressed look he managed to close his mouth again. He swallowed a little, looking away.

“I just- should have noticed, that’s all,” he admitted, softer than he’d meant to.

“Ash will be fine,” said Lisa encouragingly. “We’re all kind of freaking out a little. High school’s almost over. The chapter’s coming to an end. It’s a little nerve-wracking not knowing what’s coming next.”

“Well, those are the words of someone who is perfectly fine,” said Dean lightly. Lisa grinned, a little self-consciously, and ducked her head.

Watching her for a few moment, he said, softer, “…Are you? Fine?”

Lisa looked back up, her expression more serious now. Her eyes drifted away, somewhere to the middle distance, and she shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. It’s…I guess I’m not sure how to feel. Excited, relieved, scared… I guess I’m not really going to know until I get there, right?”

Her fingers were tapping lightly on her knee, uncertain. Dean was strangely focused on them, wanting suddenly to reach out and hold them between his. But he kept his hands where they were.

The conversation paused and they let it gestate a little, looking around. Dean glanced at her profile and thought about last year, how he had seen her in the halls and on the way to school but never talked to her, never really known her. It was odd that a year ago they had been mere ghosts to each other, and now her presence was as natural as sunlight. And in a few short weeks, she could possibly be gone forever.

The thought sunk heavy in his gut, constricting in his throat. He looked back down at his beer, now room-temperature.

There was a sharp inhale of breath, and Lisa said suddenly, “So this just got pretty depressing. And I don’t think we can blame the music.”

Dean chuckled under his breath. “Well, if we’ve found the problem, how do you suggest we fix it?”

“Well…,” said Lisa, drawing out the word as she leaned in conspiratorially. “Word is that someone got their hands on some fireworks.”

“Fun _and_ a fire hazard,” said Dean. “That should bring in the cops.”

“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them for a few minutes before the party is brought to a dignified end.”

Which is how, a few minutes later, Dean was dragged out onto the house’s back patio. Most of the party went with them, moving lazily like a herd of cows. But Lisa’s hand was firm in Dean’s, and he let it tug him through the crowd. They ended pressed up together somewhere in the middle, the cool night air useless against the mass of bodies.

“Glad I’m not claustrophobic,” Dean muttered to himself. Apparently, just loud enough for Lisa to hear, because she grinned at him and poked his side.

The first rocket shot off, streaking into the night and popping above them in a loud burst. The kids below cheered in response, and Dean willed himself to relax, head tilted to the sky. The fireworks punched through the night like gunshots, strangely taboo and exhilarating in blatant display. There was no way to cover these up, deny their presence. Everybody in the neighborhood would know, and it wouldn’t take long for someone to come along and put a stop to them. So Dean relaxed, letting the lights wash over him and the explosions burst in his ears. It was…liberating.

That was probably what did it, he would think in hindsight. He wouldn’t remember why he looked down at Lisa, what he was going to say. But he would remember her face: soft, open, wondering, and even a little…sad. A burst of red had touched her face, reflecting in her dark eyes, and Dean’s breath had caught, sudden.

The crowd continued to cheer around them but Dean suddenly couldn’t seem to care. He was stuck on her profile, the way her hair curled off her shoulder and around her ear. Her eyelashes were visible in short bursts and he waited for each one, breathless, willing each flash of light to linger, the moments fragile and fleeting. Dean wanted to catch each one and hold on, pin them to pages in a book, something. The feeling was new and strange and should have been frightening but he wasn’t afraid, not at all.

Lisa noticed his stare. Her eyes drifted down from the sky and slid across his face, meeting his. She smiled in confusion and tilted her head, a question. Dean’s breath returned to him and it was dizzying, oxygen a kind of high he had never felt before. The fireworks soared and screeched above them, pop, pop, pop…

It didn’t take long for the question in Lisa’s face to find an answer, and he saw the exact moment it settled in her head. He saw knowledge settled into her eyes, into the lines of her face, her look darker now, heady. Her gaze slipped down to his lips, once, eyelashes flickering as she blinked back up to his stare. Dean is frozen where he stands, so afraid of breaking the moment, that it will pop around them and leave him unfulfilled, unfinished. As if sensing this, Lisa tilted her chin up, just so. An invitation.

Gravity reoriented itself, closing in around them. Dean felt his equilibrium shift and he swayed, just a fraction. He could feel her pull on him and he complied, easy. The easiest thing in the world…

_“No, it means you’re **easy**. And how am I supposed to trust someone who is easy?”_

And just like that, the moment breaks. Dean’s stomach churned and bile rose into his throat, and he cursed, cursed, cursed against it. He tried to push it away but it was too late, the crowd once again present around them and Dean felt on display, wrong. He was just a breath away from Lisa’s lips; one soft press, and Dean’s heart twisted with longing at the thought of it. For a second, he wants to take it anyway.

Instead, he shifted, leaned past her mouth and pressed at her cheek, once. Lisa’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheek, and he leaned against her temple, breathing in the smell of her shampoo and willing back the tears. When he pulled back, Lisa’s expression wasn’t easy to read. He searched for anything he could trust: anger, pity, rejection. But all he found was acceptance.

“I’m sorry,” he said, just over the noise, but Lisa shook her head.

“It’s OK,” she replied, smiling softly. Dean knew it wasn’t.

The lingered for a few minutes more, showered in the lights and the sounds. But soon enough they agreed that staying any longer would be pushing their luck against the cops showing up. Dean spots Ash as they head out, and he waves them off, lost in the Dugan twins. Dean takes that as permission as anything.

The drive back home wasn’t as awkward as it should have been. In fact, it felt almost close to normal for a little while, the banter easy and conversation light. It was only when Lisa was out of the car, walking to her porch that Dean let himself feel it again. For a brief moment, he wanted to call her back, rush out of the car after her, catch her. To spin her round and taste her, like he should have, like he would have if…

Lisa got to her door, unlocked it. For a moment, she turned back, haloed in the hallway light, and she smiled, waving to him. Dean mustered up his own smile, waving back.

The door closed, and she was gone.

\---

Dean didn’t know if he had been in love with Nick. There was a wound there now that made it difficult to think he would ever know. But he had been committed.

Those first few months after his mom’s accident had been tumultuous, to say the least. With Mary Winchester suspended indefinitely between life and death, it had been hard for her family to tell up from down, let alone what they were going to do without her. It was a possibility John could not bring himself to even consider, and Dean could never quite forgive him for shutting down like he did. Sam certainly didn’t. And what with this fugue state, caught between wondering if they should be planning a welcome home party or a funeral, for Dean, it had been hard to remember why school had ever been important in the first place, when he could instead be doing something to help support the family.

That was right around the time Nick had asked him out.

Dean hadn’t been blind. The timing was awful and Nick was bad news. But he’d taken Dean out of his head and given him space to talk. At a point where John was almost obsessively at the hospital and Sam was pouring into his schoolwork, at least Nick had looked at Dean and seemed to actually see him. At least Nick had wanted him.

That, more than anything, was probably what made the breakup hurt so much.

“Well, what am I supposed to think, Dean?” Nick snapped, betrayal odd and shining in his eyes. “I thought we had something good here. I thought you wanted me!”

“I do,” Dean had placated, bewildered and uncertain on his feet. “I didn’t say that-”

“You want me, but you come in here and tell me that you’re attracted to girls? If you haven’t noticed, Dean, I’m lacking a little in that department!”

“I said-” The words stumbled in Dean’s mouth. He tried again. “I said, I only said I thought I was bi.”

“Which means you’ve been checking out girls behind my back, Dean,” Nick sneered. He threw his hands up, turning away from Dean like he couldn’t bear to look at him anymore. “God, this is what I get, this is what I get for going out with questioning guys-”

“I’m not questioning,” Dean interrupted, the words more heated now. He tried to remember, think of the words Casey had used. “I know what I want. Being bi- being bi just means I’m attracted to boys and girls, it doesn’t have to have any influence on- on how I feel about you.”

Nick snorted, sighed. He turned back to Dean with a look that was half pitying, half contempt. “No, it means you’re easy. And how am I supposed to trust someone who is easy?”

No matter what Dean had said- or tried to say, the concepts still shaky in his own head- Nick hadn’t wanted to hear any more. When he told Dean to leave, it had felt like the world slowed around him, muggy and off-kilter. He walked out the door and never went back.

\---

“He thought… he thought I was cheating on him. Or- or going to cheat on him, I don’t-”

“Well, did you?” Sam asked, blunt.

And that- that had hurt. On an already pretty sucky night, that had been a dull punch to the gut.

“No, Sam,” said Dean, voice far shakier and more emotional than he wanted. “I wasn’t going to cheat on him.”

Sam sighed, putting his text book down to rub at his eyes. “I just don’t know why you had to make it so difficult,” he muttered. “Just thought, ‘I like guys’ and left it at that.”

“Because I’m not-”

“Whatever, Dean,” Sam cut off, dismissive. “But just so you know, wanting to have a threesome with Casey and her boyfriend does not make you bi.”

\---

Dean saw Lisa only one more time after the fireworks show. Even if he himself would not be graduating, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t show up and support his friends who were. So he sat in the audience, watching his classmates cross the stage, dressed in school colors and beaming brightly. Something small and sharp pierced just between his ribs, and he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d so badly wanted to cry.

After the ceremony, he found Casey. She smiled so bright when she saw him, and hugged him tightly, rocking them a little. There had been so many things he’d wanted to say to her right then, but it wouldn’t be right, not here, not now. Not on her moment. But the look she gave him when she pulled away was so sad, so knowing, he guessed he didn’t need to tell her after all.

Lisa, he spotted through the crowd. Her arms were around her sister and her eyes were bright, a mix of pride and self-consciousness. Her parents doted around her, lighting her up with pictures, and a few of her friends soon crushed around her as well, energetic and laughing. Dean was bumped and jostled by the press of people but he did not move. She felt much, much further away than the few feet between them, out beyond his touch. 

He wanted to go to her. He wanted to tell her that he had seen her back in August and had just waited, waited to go up to her and ask her out. He had been ready and was going to do it and then his mom had wrapped her car around a tree.

Another admission. Another weight that had no place here, on this day.

The crowd buffeted him a little more, and Dean let it carry him away.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are lovely, comments are welcome.


End file.
